Good evening ladies and gentlemen,
and welcome to the Show!

We would like to introduce Show, a multi-layered chromatic font family based on an old Victorian style wood type.

13 styles for all kinds of amazing effects.

336 glyphs in each style, with support for Central European languages.

Pay less with a tweet or a post on Facebook.

A gift for our first 50 customers.

Enjoy the Show!

A new font with an old story

Show designers Inés Atienza and Juanjo López are members of the Familia Plómez association, a small printshop based in Madrid that devote their efforts to promote everything about letterpress printing, calligraphy, and lettering.

One of our favorite typefaces from our collection of wood types has been the basis for creating a new digital typeface. All we knew about this font when we first came across it was that it was found in a basement on the Canary Islands, however its origin or manufacturer remained unknown.

After much searching in old specimen books, we came to find out that it’s part of a type family called Concave, a Victorian type launched in 1884 by the foundry Marder, Luse & Co.

After using it on several letterpress projects, we thought we would have a go at digitizing the original type, as well as giving it a multilayered chromatic accompaniment.

What is a Chromatic Typeface?
Using Show

Although it might seem as if chromatic or multilayered typefaces are a current fad, they have been part of printers’ collections for centuries.

In the nineteenth century, with the advent of the Industrial Revolution and the need for new typefaces that would capture the attention of new consumers, chromatic wood types became widely popular. All manufacturers strove to compete in showmanship; William H. Page’s 1874 Specimens of Chromatic Wood Type, Borders, Etc.is one such example of this opulent style.

Chromatic type is printed from multiple pieces of type, each with a different ink; each color is the result of the sheet of paper making a separate pass through the press. These chromatic types were designed to register as much as possible, repeating only a part of the design and allowing the user to even create colors by mixing superimposed parts.

We use a similar method in the digital realm. There are two kinds of layers: ones designed to be on the bottom (3D, shadows, etc.), and ones that are meant to be kept on top. The placement (or registration) of the new layer of type is much simpler than in letterpress: simply copy and paste your text in exactly the same place, and change the style and color. Once you start experimenting, there are endless possibilities.

Show-o-matic

Switch on & off the Show styles. Make your combination and say: Bazinga!